ast week a close friend fell ill, and I had to get a Covid-19 test. NHS slots were all booked up, so I bought an overpriced kit at the local pharmacy. Having swabbed myself, I was directed to drop it off in a sealed box at a Randox Health in central London.
The Randox offices are a corporate lobby of glass and plastic, with televisions playing stock footage of doctors performing myriad vague medical procedures. The place was unstaffed but for a single receptionist talking on the phone. Every now and then, couriers hurried in looking confused, demanding a drop-off or a pick-up before being directed elsewhere. When it was time to drop off my biohazard, the receptionist walked me behind a little S-shaped alcove and I saw it… there on the floor, a little pile of sealed, untested samples strewn like socks on the rug of a child’s bedroom. The receptionist threw my sample on with the rest and I left – hoping it would find its way to the lab in Northern Ireland.
I can’t stop thinking about that pile of samples. It feels somehow symbolic of the government’s response to coronavirus – in which billions of pounds worth of contracts have been handed out, often without any competitive tender, to private companies.
